Sept 2024

 

Our Anniversary rolled around. I honestly cant remember which one this was ... something greater than 20. So far so good.

Check out my cool anniversary present from David.

I had an adventure at work. See that dark spot on the white tank there? Its a swarm of bees.

None of us can figure out why they went in there but happily one of the workers in a close building is a bee keeper and she had gear in her car to collect the swarm and some empty hives at home to put them into.

The bees were completely peaceful and I had this one crawling on me for a few minutes before it flew off to join the rest of the swarm.

I reminded it that my name means honey bee and that therefore we should l peaceably coexist.

lol

As the summer wound down we started clearing gardens for fall and even putting out some mums.

Pax got a huge tumor removed from her leg. We decided not to get it biopsied because at her age and with all her health problems we wouldn't pursue further treatment one way or another. She hated the cone of shame and recovered really well.

We had to put it back on her for a little wile after she was officially done with it because she kept licking her leg until it was hairless again. She was particularly displeased to put it back on.

She gave us many reproachful looks.

We decided to try out tiki bars. David is very into tiki mugs and tiki drinks and so it was a natural mission.

This is the wall paper on the way to the bathrooms at Interchange Brewery in Hagerstown. We liked this place a ton.

They have food trucks instead of a restaurant and also there is a crazy pizza place behind them so we got strange foods and creative drinks. 

They still had decorations up from a Beetlejuice 2 event up and they made me and the kids nifty nonalcohol drinks.

We are definitely going back to this one.

September is the best time for the garden and also for the CSA. We were brimming with veggies and fresh herbs all month.

I got another cool t-shirt (this time from The Crow ). I got a sleeveless one to help with my tattoo plans

We went to the Maryland Renaissance fair. We brought Lucero and had fun.

I got the right peppers to make tamales. I put them in several bags and threw them in the freezer and will let you know how it goes. I made tamales without them in September but wow they were not right.

Megan has been doing lots of figure sketches. I think she's doing very well with her art.

Pax got back on her feet and back out of the cone (again).

Look at those almost right ingredients.

Curses!

This is my current long term gardening project.

I am hoping to grow Irish Hawthorn trees. These trees take a lot of abuse to germinate and I've been taking them in and out of the freezer and beating them up since May. Now i am moving them outside so that they can get the full brunt of cold weather and then hopefully I will see a few sprout int he spring. Sometimes this takes several years.

Hawthorn have a huge place in Irish mythology and folklore. The trees mark an entrance to the underworld/fairy land and I am hoping to put one at the top of my driveway.

This is a cool blaster that David has been working on. It is the Han shot first Star Wars blaster from the cantina scene.

It still needs to be painted and glued together.

I am thinking of doing a wall display of blasters and sabers from my favorite movies and books. Some Star Wars and Some Lord of the Rings at the minimum.

We went out on our Anniversary day to a tiki bar on Solomns island

We are keeping a spreadsheet on the bars we go to the the food and drinks that we try.

This one had great beach vibe.

We also took a trip down to see family. They are in North Carolina but we just keep calling it Not Bracey because we used to go to Bracey.

We got to see Milo on the week before he died and are lucky for that. He was an obnoxious dog but very beloved.

Here is the final art for my custom tattoo.

Every bit of it means something. I have mountains from West Virginia, animals that I love, Celtic and Nordic art work that I love, things from books that I love, something from lord of the rings, deer from a story with my grandfather, representations of the kids and David, and space for something I am hoping to get later.

One of my main concerns is that especially in the case of Norse artwork there is a pretty fine line between things I love historically and things that neo-Nazis use as self identification.

Below is my greatest concern. The circle on my shoulder is from a Susan Cooper book series that I read every year, a t-shirt of a Swedish mandala that I wear all the time, a first nations mandala that I used to draw on all my stuff in school and a stone age pictograph.

I had the artist change it a bit to take it even further from the image below but you can see why I am concerned.